Impact of COVID-19 on Staff Mental Health and Well-Being in SMEs:Strategies and Interventions to Support Workforce and Boost Productivity in the UK

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

COVID-19 pandemic has led governments globally to respond with unprecedented lock down and economic measures to combat spread of the disease, and support workers and businesses. The pandemic presents a real threat to small and medium sized enterprises' (SMEs') workforce mental health (MH) and well-being, and employers need to pursue serious plans to support their workforce (16 million people) in the UK. There is limited evidence in this regard and research is needed from a multi-disciplinary perspective on best strategies, interventions and policies informing SMEs (99.9% of UK businesses) regarding how to support the staff and enhance their productivity.12.8m working days were lost (2018-19, pre-pandemic) in the UK (£30 billion), due to work-related stress, depression and anxiety. It is estimated that 5.6 million workers are at risk of losing their jobs and that the UK economy will shrink by 35% this spring due to pandemic. This economic meltdown is expected to increase SMEs' staff MH problems and significantly impact: staff productivity, such as need to fulfil multiple roles, acquire new skills, work under different environment with limited support, and pressure to avoid bottlenecks; business productivity - expected to meet higher demands and cope with supply uncertainties to make supply chain resilient and boost UK productivity, with the reduced workforce. The main objectives of this project are to: (1) Develop a conceptual model that will facilitate analysing the relationship between MH issues faced by SMEs' staff, factors and various job dimensions contributing to these issues, and its impact on both the staff and business productivity during the pandemic, through a multi-stage survey with 1200 SMEs' employees in the UK;(2) Develop a COVID-19 employee well-being framework comprising of strategies, practices and interventions, considering SMEs' needs and constraints, and conduct a longitudinal study for six months with twenty SMEs to evaluate its effectiveness and impact towards increasing the resilience and productivity of SMEs' workforce in varying work contexts during and after the pandemic;(3) Develop a COVID-19 MH application to monitor the MH conditions of SMEs' workforce and pilot it with the longitudinal study, to show how the data collected through the app will enable each individual SME to understand its staff needs, introspect their well-being, that will facilitate customizing the framework, i.e. objectively putting in place practices, strategies and interventions to address employee MH, well-being and firm's productivity related issues. To summarize: Objective 1 outlines the SMEs' and their staff needs, taking into account business and individual constraints in the current pandemic demonstrated using a model validated through a multi-stage survey with 1200 SMEs employees; Objective 2 will develop a evidence-based framework for SMEs based on the first objective, existing literature and guidance, to support their staffs' MH and well-being during and after the pandemic, which will be validated by interdisciplinary experts and qualitative studies with selected SMEs; Objective 3 will implement and pilot a MH app to monitor and visualize MH condition and examine its effectiveness to support the needs of each SME and their staff; and finally a longitudinal study with 15 SMEs in the UK will demonstrate the effectiveness of MH app to help customize the framework considering the dynamic needs of individual SMEs in pandemic, and impact of wellbeing framework and mental health app on SMEs' workforce and business productivity.